Blog posts

High-Octane Science

My turn again eh? I really can’t believe it’s been over 2 months since the last blog post I did. The time has really flown by, with all the experiments blurring into one and every paper I read just starting to jumble around in my head like alphabet soup. The funder’s meeting came and went, and now we’re all working on our 9 month early stage reviews, something I’m sure the other Stratigrad students are looking forward to as much as I am…

I’m spending more and more time over at the IRDB building at Hammersmith Hospital, where I’ve been carrying out all of my tissue culture work.

About the subjectivity of time and R!

Hi, I’m Torben, and I’m afraid that I am a little late with my blog post (my apologies for that)! Lately, I was introduced by one of my supervisors with the words “He’s one of the cancer guys”. I still find this a little awkward, but I reckon that this expression describes me quite well. I started developing to be a “cancer guy” since working for my master’s project at University of Potsdam where I analysed gene expression data of colorectal cancer samples. I studied bioinformatics in my masters and what fascinated me most was network theory (I hope I can talk about that in future posts).

Impossibility!!

Hi everyone, this is my first blog which means I am very excited. I will like to use this wonderful opportunity to wish a happy mother’s day to all the mothers .

This week was a very interesting week as some of us had the opportunity to go to the Precision Medicine Symposium, 2013. This year’s focus was on Breast cancer; some of the brightest minds in the field had the opportunity to present some insightful and seminal work. Again, I obviously loved being there.

This is one of the perks of being a PhD student at Imperial College London (ICL).

Exciting times!

This week (/last week really) it’s my turn to blog – how exciting! So, I was the last of the eight to join this years’ cohort, but couldn’t have been made more welcomed by everyone. Though, sharing a little honesty with you all now, when I first joined I did initially wonder what I had let myself in for! [See we’re a very unique bunch of budding scientists!]. Looking back now, and following a truly remarkable 6 months, I most definitely ‘fit’ into this assortment – there’s still a few European customs that I’m not convinced should be freely shared within the group.

Getting a grip. Just.

So it’s been a bit of an uphill struggle settling in with my PhD. This is mainly because it’s a totally different application of chemistry to my comfort zone (synthetic organometallic, not something you’d often describe as “comfortable”, eh?), not to mention the totally different vibe at Imperial compared to Newcastle, and the awful stomach-dropping feeling of being hopelessly out of my depth every time someone asks me even a fairly straightforward question. I’ve gotten tired of feeling totally out of control all the time, so I looked for some concrete measures to nail everything down and try to get a grip, both for my own sanity and because threatening to quit every other week is driving the other Stratigrads round the bend. 

Off Magnets and MassSpec

Hello everybody!

My PhD project revolves around the usage of metabolic phenotyping in epidemiological studies and the MWAS (Metabolome Wide Association Study). Basically, the metabolic phenotyping of urine biofluid samples from participants in epidemiologic studies makes it possible to look for associations between metabolites, nutrition and the health status of individuals and populations. We then have huge ammounts of very rich and complex data to explore and a lot of detective work to do. Handling all this is an Herculean task that cannot be accomplished without automation and computational tools. I’m developing some of these tools and applying them on data from epidemiolgical studies on blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

Busy, busy, busy!

Last week was one of the busiest weeks since starting our PhDs so I’m afraid my blog is a little late this week! I will explain this a little more below though…

As my first blog I should really talk a little about my PhD project. The main focus of my project is to look at the metabolic profile of preterm infants and identify any prognostic markers that are associated with developing infants. I have a background in microbiology so I will be incorporating this into my project by investigating the host-microbial interactions also. I am very excited about my project (obviously) and hope that my previous knowledge/experience will come in handy.

Easter break, Swiss chocolate and working from home

Starting my first ever post with “Easter break” and “holiday” is risky as these words are usually banned from the PhD vocabulary, but bear with me…

First thing first, my project focus is on the regulatory mediators of inflammation. Their characterization and quantification is a first step in order to identify surgery patients with a high-risk of post-operative complications. As this project combines at the same time work in the lab (like sample preparation and acquisition) and on the computer (data analysis and processing), it’s fairly easy to change your focus depending on the equipment availability or your inspiration.

It’s quite common for the most computational intensive tasks to take hours or even days, but luckily you don’t always have to go back to the SAF building to collect the result, study them and send another batch of calculations during the weekend. 

Adam’s first blog post

I’m going to be honest, I’ve never blogged. Or tweeted. So if this comes across as a bit rambling, I apologise. I also spent all of last night moving, so am a little exhausted and all over the place.

It’s been nearly 6 months since we all started our studentships, and everything is  finally  starting to feel a bit less overwhelming. Working at the SAF building really feels like a big deal (especially coming off the back of working in a tiny kitchen at minium wage for a year just before it), and starting in the section in a group has been a real benefit, as we have all experienced everything at the same time and been there to help each other whenever we need it.

Hello world!

This blog has just been created to give insight into the life and times of StratiGrad PhD students in the Section of Computational and Systems Medicine. Come back soon to read more – there is never a dull moment!